Mumbai: The SENSEX opened moderately better and later moved irregularly in a narrow range of 35 points in line with scrip-specific activity during early stages at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Dec 8, 2003) on selective investors buying.

The BSE benchmark 30-share Index opened higher at 5144.95 as against last Friday's close of 5131.72 and later fluctuated erratically in a range between 5147.65 and 5107.11 before being quoted at 5157.86 at 10.30 a.m.

Investors have shifted their focus to sectors like FMCG, Pharma and Consumer Durables, which had been ignored during the past few weeks.

Attributing the sudden shift of focus to these sectors to the National Stock Exchange's (NSE) decision to slap special margins on select heavyweighted counters, brokers said retailers preferred to book profits in some old economy stocks while picking up shares of FMCG and Pharma sectors.

Flow of funds remained encouraging with Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) pumping in Rs 1367 crore during the first four sessions of the week.

Key counters like HLL, Ranbaxy Lab, Satyam Computers, Bharti Televenture, BHEL, CIPLA, Grasim, ITC and a few others were quoted remarkably higher.

Among the top gainers, National Fert were quoted up by 8.92 per cent, Merck by 4.81 per cent, Balaji Tele by 4.74 per cent, Bharti Tele by 4.60 per cent, Britania by 3.81 per cent, Castrol by 3.67 per cent, Abbott by 3.63 per cent, Aurobindo Ph by 3.48 per cent and Novartis by 2.96 per cent.

However, ABB, EIL, I-GATE, Wipro, Hexaware Soft, Hinduja TMT, Geometric Software, RIL and Bajaj Auto were prominent losers.

PTI